Got room for another probe up there, Google? Jobs sites ask EU antitrust tsar to look at how search giant ranks them

Several leading jobs sites have written to the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, calling for an investigation into how Google ranks their websites. Google has its own aggregation widget that collates what it considers to be relevant job ads into a box that appears near the top of the search results. …

[ratfox]

Those aren't ads, though, are they? Google is not asking or receiving money to show the job offers in the widget. At least... Not yet. I'm guessing that what has the jobs sites worried.

[vtcodger]

I forsee another Google Auction in their future

Google will simply conduct an auction for top placement in their job widget. The site what pays the most gets top billing. No judgment calls. No bias. Just cash on the barrelhead. What could be more in keeping with modern Silicon Valley ethics standards?

[Duncan Macdonald]

Re: I forsee another Google Auction in their future

Just cash on the barrelhead. What could be more in keeping with modern Silicon Valley ethics standards? Answer - undeclared cash in brown envelopes :-))

[LeahroyNake]

Please don't go

'Vestager is stepping down as competition commissioner later this year. The Danish politician has taken a jaundiced view of tech giants and their use and abuse of data to consolidate their businesses. But there is no reason for Google to suppose that the commission will soften its stance under a new leader. ®'

Vestager seems to be a right royal pain for those multinational companies and is trying to bring them to account for their behaviour. Thank you for your service and please please please try to ensure that your replacement isn't scared of carrying on the crusade on behalf of the Little people.

[J.G.Harston]

So..... things that don't look like job ads don't get ranked up with job ads? Film at ten.

[Crisp]

Recruitment agencies are parasites

They add absolutely nothing to the job hunting process and frequently make it worse. They usually know so little about the industry they are recruiting for that all they can do is pass along job descriptions.

[prh99]

More traffic and better matches, at least anecdotally, and as far as I can tell free with the exception of some formatting requirements ...what's the issue, some competitors jumped on it and get better placement for their listings? That's not anticompetitive, it using all the resources at your disposal.

[jeffdyer]

Job sites.

[Anonymous Coward]

We seem to be blinkered on Google

What started as a good search engine, supported by advertising, has evolved into an advertising organisation that looks for ways to gather data to strengthen its marketing, one of which is its search engine. All my online devices (desktop, laptop, phone and tablet) default to a different search engine - currently DuckDuckGo, but there are others. Rather than try to rein in Google, perhaps what is needed is to ensure people are aware of alternatives. Just as a Hoover isn't the only vacuum cleaner around (and real "Hoovers" may now be a minority), so "Google" isn't the only search engine.

One major problem will be where schools are rushing to Chromebooks for their students. The fight against seeing MS Office as the default office software seems to be playing into Google's hands as Google Docs, and not OpenOffice (and variants) are winning. At least, that' the situation with schools in my region. Get the kids learning with your software and they'll look to use it thereafter (at least until they can be persuaded there might be a better alternative.

To be controversial, anyone who decides to default their browsing to Chrome shouldn't complain that their data is harvested or that their search results may be biased in favour of Googles profits.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for laughs.

Try googling s*** shovelling jobs on Indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

'by restructuring its websites to follow Google's rules'

So play by Google-dictated rules or else? What does that mean for people looking for jobs using other ways of searching?

That's the classic abuse of dominant position.

[Paul Shirley]

Re: 'by restructuring its websites to follow Google's rules'

Sounds more like opt in to me and usable unlike the sledgehammer of robots.txt the clueless suggest for every Google problem.

Having been on both sides of the job agency process, I'm firmly on the “they're parasites“ side of the debate though. Anything that lets direct job adverts compete will be a valuable service.